通泉草科是最近独立出来的新科，仅包括通泉草属、肉果草属及野胡麻属3个属。通泉草属是该科最大的属，约30种，分布于东亚、东南亚、澳大利亚至新西兰，但集中分布于我国。该属现有标本数量很少，对其形态性状在居群内和居群间的变异式样研究尚欠深入，一些具有潜在分类和系统学价值的性状的研究尚为空白或相当零星，所以关于其种类的分类处理和属下系统排列等方面的问题还颇多，被认为是被子植物分类最困难的类群之一。本项目拟将标本室工作、野外考察和实验手段结合起来，对该属主要形态性状的变异式样和幅度以及一些微观性状进行深入研究，分析和评价性状的分类和系统学意义，全面完成分类学修订，并探讨属的界定、系统位置和属下系统排列等问题。

Mazaceae is a recently proposed family which includes only three genera,Mazus,Lancea and Dodartia. Mazus is the largest genus of Mazaceae, comprising about 30 species distributed in East Asia, South-East Asia, Australia to New Zealand, but primarily in China. Mazus is one of the most taxonomically challenging angiosperm genus, and the existing morphological infrageneric classification of Mazus is far from being satisfactory. The latter is partly due to scarce representation of Mazus in the herbaria and lack of studies on intraspecific morphological variation. The present study is first taxonomic revision of Mazus based on morphological, cytological and molecular evidence.